eastern, president obama and mitt romney will face off in their first of three debates. we have an all star panel tonight. former congressman rick lazio and former clinton white house aide keith boykin. and herman cain tells us what it's like to debate kevin madden. it's all about leadership and leadership means taking control of the conversation. that's just my advice. in an anemic overall economy, we've seen some positives in recent days. the ism services surprised on the up side today, 15 million car sales yesterday and of course stocks have been rising since a year ago today. the s&p is up 32%. so things can't be all that bad. how will the investor class vote in 34 days? but first up, both mitt romney and president obama are in their respective hotel rooms now. they're making final preparations for the big debate and cnbc's own john harwood joins us live with the details. good evening, john. >> good evening, larry. two hours from that debate we've gotten a reminder in the last 24 hours with a slew of polls of how high the stakes are in this debate. we forget sometime